Blast from the past

me, originally uploaded by djuber.

Taken aboard the USS Duluth, probably off the coast of Yemen, Fall 2000.

Added a new blog.

I don't think anyone will want to view it, but I am now in the process of using flickr to upload photos. Since they only allow you to view your last 200 photos without paying, I will be blogging each photo to another page. This is just to have permanent links to content. FYI.

Me in my Kitchen

Me in my Kitchen, originally uploaded by djuber.

About to change my smiling face to something a little moodier... If you think this is a little grungy, you should see my licence pic. I've had that sweatshirt too long, but I can't find another that fits me so well.

Photo

Welcome to Hawaii.

Feet and Floor

Where I'd like to go

Melbourne, Australia, Should have enough rewards points on Amex in a few months for one ticket, and I hope the $400 companion ticket can be applied to this... then its only a trip to San Francisco and G'day, Australia! I think it's about 115000 points from my Amex card... currently just over 70,000, in about a year and a half.
Radium Hot Springs, BC, Canada
Naples -- last time I only saw the sunrise behind Vesuvius on a cold January day (1 degree, nearly freezing). Beth's been, she had all the fun on a trip with Elena.
Seville and Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Prince Edward Island... maybe Mrs Nistler will get me a Friends of Anne magnet once I finish this hajj to green gables.
New Orleans, if it's still there when I make it.
Quito, Ecuador
Mackinaw Island... been on the todo list for a while... what's stopping me?

Where am I going, where have I been

Upcoming: Kona and Honolulu, Hawaii, 5/21-5/24
Vancouver, BC, May 26-28
Banff, Alberta, June 4-5
Chicago, Illinois, June 15-18
Madison, Wisconsin July 14th
Road Trip to San Francisco July 15-18, stopping in Omaha to see my mother.
Road trip from San Francisco to Tacoma via Redwoods and Oregon Coast, July 19-21

Where have I been... some of these were a while back
Dubai, UAE
Manama, Bahrain
Diego Garcia, BIOT
Victoria, Seychelles
Phuket and Patong Beach, Thailand
Singapore
Darwin and Cairns, Australia
Honolulu and Kona, Hawaii
Dutch Harbor and St Paul, Alaska
St Paul and Minneapolis, MN
Duluth, MN
Tokyo, Japan
Hong Kong, China
Montreal, Quebec
Toronto, Ontario
Winnipeg and Shilo, Manitoba
Fargo, North Dakota
Billings, Butte, Bozeman and Missoula, Montana
Sheridan, Wyoming
Iowa City, Iowa
Kansas City, Saint Louis, and Jefferson City, Missouri
Biloxi, Mississipi
Portland, Salem, Bend, Eugene, Corvallis, and Lincoln City, Oregon
Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, Irvine/Anaheim/Santa Ana, Nevada City, Truckee, South Lake Tahoe, Merced, Fresno, and Pasadena, California.
Mexico City and Mazatlan, Mexico
Vancouver, Kamloops, and Victoria, British Columbia
Edmonton, Jasper, Banff, Calgary, Canmore and Ft MacMurray, Alberta
Gallup, Farmington, and Albuquerque, New Mexico
Prescott, Yuma, and Phoenix, Arizona
Reno, Carson City, Las Vegas, and Laughlin, Nevada
Aurora, Denver, Vail, and Aspen, Colorado
Chicago, Illinois
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Niagara Falls, Schenectady, Brooklyn, NYC, and Buffalo, New York
Allentown, PA
and of course,
Wall Drug, South Dakota

Flickr

Well, I've started using Flickr... I'm happy with the map data, straightforward, and saves me the trouble of using pushpins. I'm also on Facebook, but apart from being an easy way to find me, I don't use it much. Got a message from a friend in Qatar. That's the beauty of the internet.

View my pictures here

Spook

Tree in Bloom, Victoria

Chicago

Traveling to Chicago
Fri 15-Jun-07

Seattle (SEA)
Depart 10:30 pm to Atlanta (ATL)
Arrive 6:07 am +1 day 2,178 mi
(3,505 km)
Duration: 4hr 37mn
DL Delta
Flight: 616

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3Economy/Coach Class ( 42A ), Meal, Boeing 767-300


Sat 16-Jun-07
Atlanta (ATL)
Depart 8:05 am to Chicago (ORD)
Arrive 9:10 am 600 mi
(966 km)
Duration: 2hr 5mn
DL Delta
Flight: 1036

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3Economy/Coach Class ( 36E ), BOEING (DOUGLAS) MD-88


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Total distance: 2,778 mi (4,471 km)
Total duration: 6hr 42mn (8hr 40mn with connections)


Traveling to Seattle
Mon 18-Jun-07

Chicago (ORD)
Depart 7:15 pm to Houston (IAH)
Arrive 10:00 pm 933 mi
(1,502 km)
Duration: 2hr 45mn
CO Continental
Flight: 1647

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3Economy/Coach Class ( 20A ), Boeing 737-300


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Houston (IAH)
Depart 10:45 pm to Seattle (SEA)
Arrive 1:14 am +1 day 1,883 mi
(3,030 km)
Duration: 4hr 29mn
CO Continental
Flight: 1461

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3Economy/Coach Class ( 10A ), Boeing 737-300


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Total distance: 2,816 mi (4,532 km)
Total duration: 7hr 14mn (7hr 59mn with connections)

Mexico City

View from my window on the 24th floor of the Hotel Nikko in Polanco.

Purple Wildflowers in Victoria

Beacon Hill Park--Last Sunday in April.

America

View from the Strait of Juan de Fuca looking back to the Olympic Penninsula

Beacon Hill Park

Here is a beach in Victoria. Beth and I watched Kiteboarders playing in the surf. Of course they needed a wetsuit, but as we were on dry land and nearly freezing in the strong sea wind, it must be 'invigorating' to dip into the Pacific.

Victoria in April

Beth's birthday this year we went to Victoria, BC.
This is the ship we took from Port Angeles, the MV Coho. The red flag with the Black Circle indicates it's operated by the Black Ball Transport Co.

A week in May

This week I travelled to San Francisco and to Irvine. My San Francisco job wasn't yet ready, and it gave me the opportunity to do some spur-of-the-moment work. I dropped by a store in Palo Alto which had requested a service visit but did not have any problems, and I travelled to Rutherford, Napa Valley, to address some small issues with a large house.

I understand it is the guest house, the main estate is across the road, along the banks of the Napa River. The roads heading up away from the vineyards are free and western, unapologetically single-laned, and breathtaking! I recommend anyone finding themselves there to try to oakville grade-dry creek road route.

Arriving in Orange County led me to all kinds of angering memories of all that is wrong with the sprawling anonymous corporate parks, with professionally managed properties and groomed landscaping. No indication or reason behind the strip mall, and no guidance at intersections to lead one way or the other. There aren't enough restaurants, and there is no way to find one. Even Silicon Valley doesn't suffer from this bizarre anonymity and emptiness. In Santa Clara there may be a factory or corporate park, but the settling effect of time has planted homes squarely beside it. Irvine is still too new, the plastic hasn't peeled off the windows of the homes, and there is no weathering of the tiles.

Patterns of supply and demand haven't shaken out, and the corner stores are nowhere to be found. Maybe what they really need is one big surge of immigration, entrepreneurial family men who can't help but open a 400 sq ft retail duplication of effort. What else is there for a man who can't understand the culture of work in America, and can't compete in office politics. What better use for a child than to tend shop semi-legally. I guarantee a child who spends his time stacking boxes for his pop isn't out popping pills with little Susie Latchkey.

Dustin and I went down to San Diego to visit a friend of his who lives now in New York near Saratoga. It was a marvellously uninspiring visit, but it put me in contact with small children, and I keep pretty well when there are toddlers at play, lisping and mumbling with all the right vowel shapes and none of the stacato precision of consonants.

When language seems more like a dance of directions and not a sequence of stops. I find my admiration of small children unremarkable and natural, but am constantly being told how conspicuously fond I am of children. Maybe I am in practice for my grandparenthood.

San Diego was all I remembered, with none of the familiar faces. The apartments next to sweetwater HS in Natl City were mere blocks away from the old bachelor pad in Chula Vista, the freeways have gotten neither better nor worse, and the thrill of knowing 80MPH is perfectly normal is a pleasure I hardly know now, with business travel putting me square in city centers during rush hours, and Washington Culture preventing more the 70MPH without the certainty that I am being unpleasant to those around me and asking the State Patrol to pay me a visit.

I travelled over the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time. The last time I had business in Marin I came from Oakland on the Richmond-San Rafael bridge, but this time I had a long while to occupy myself with the drive, and was coming from just south of San Francisco. It had been some time since I took 19th Av north through the city to the bridge, and I feel like I made it the length of the city with only a stoplight or two getting in my way. Somewhat remarkable how San Francisco stays so functional without an excess of crosstown freeways. The secret is the 3 lanes each way no left turn thoroughfares. I can think of Van Ness, Geary, 19th. To a lesser extent the streets south of Mission, and Mission itself. Better paving and fewer streetcar tracks, it might be a pleasant experience. Beth wins, however, the houses do go right out to the curb, with no lawn. I feel like Brooklyn was greener. Hopefully what they lose in lawn they make up for in parks. Yerba Buena near the metreon/moscone/sfmoma complex is beautiful and lively.

I just missed a standby flight to Seattle. This sets me on the waiting list for a flight over two hours from now. If the 35 folks who didn't get on the flight alongside me are waiting for the next one, I may spend all evening here in San Francisco.

I finished reading George Elliot's Felix Holt: The Radical this week. I read Dubliners a few weeks ago (on the flight to Mexico City). Felix Holt was almost too much to handle, the story of a young doctor's apprentice who becomes a watchmaker, a young gentleman who returns rich from abroad--with much whispering from the Bennett ladies about the size of his fortune, no doubt. And to stir it up, add a pretty young lady, secretly the rightful heiress of the gentleman's estate, and almost Randian in her devotion to Felix's masculine resolve. Everybody lives through to act 5, Felix is jailed and pardoned, and marries a decidedly poor bride, who having tasted the sterile padded cages of upper class domesticity, moves back in with her poorly dressed low-church dissenting minister father.

I stopped in to the Borders in downtown Palo Alto, and wandered through the fiction
section taking calls. I must be a terrible nuisance to the high-browed Stanford set,
wandering aimlessly through the store talking loudly to engineers about projects I'd just as soon be done with. While I tortured myself over several volumes I really didn't want to read, I saw a gleaming new copy of Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose. I immediately picked up the book and walked to pay. It is shaping up nicely, miners, marriage, dirty towns and alienation from eastern culture by a lonely wife, with a considereable deal of avoidance by a very western oriented man struggling to elevate himself in the mining hierarchy. I wonder if it isn't as good a book about life in America as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance, which should be required reading for HS Juniors in my opinion--much better than Ethan Frome in my opinion. I wonder whether I wouldn't have postponed Hemmingway in order to get more exciting access. Is there a course on teaching Hemmingway to young adults with no significant life experience to base an appreciation on that was running through English schools in the 60's, or did the schoolboards select the titles based on merits of their value with no thought to their emotional accessibility. Apologies here are given to every person who tried to persuade me to separate sentences into small atomic thoughts. Strunk and White are turning in their graves.

The language was clean enough, almost spartan, and I since have developed a great
appreciation for most of Hemmingways works, but plodding through the Old Man and the Sea at 16 years old, 2 chapters at a time with an hour of discussion on thirty pages is torture to someone who has spent his entire life hurtling forward to a future, not yearning yet for a time gone by. How can you begin to understand the life of Santiago at that age? Julius Caesar has greed and struggle, murder, hate and war. These are things a young man can understand. Romeo and Juliet had a grudge, gangs, street fighting, and forbidden love. These are clearly things a 14 year old can relate to. But going fishing with a rotten old man, whose stoic acceptance of his bad luck permeated the whole story, I can't think a healthy american boy without 3rd world relations could sympathise.

Why does Gary Sinise only have 12 friends in Facebook?

The power of planting your feet

Change is exciting. Sometimes it is tempting to change for the sake of it. You realise that things aren't ideal, and then you start looking at the options. Some of us who are overly bright may spend years assessing opportunities before making a single move. I think its wild how much fun planning and preparing can be.

I'm currently paying too high a price for an underperforming mutual fund portfolio. If your objective is to meet or exceed the yield of a benchmark, and you have never yet done so, where do you get off charging 1.75% for all that wasted effort? Shame on you! Now the return lags 2.75% instead of the disappointing 1% you started with. Now it's just a question of finding an ideal match. I plan to make this move in the next few weeks. Convenience for something that can be better managed with a little effort is crazy.

Take the same point on a larger scale. Our very comfortable house is ridiculously far from a city we never see as a consequence, but we pay for its 'nearness' all the same. Although my fixed rate mortgage won't budge, and taxes are low, the interest will likely drop below the standard deduction in a year or so, so try not to get all worked up about the deductibility of interest from my taxes. The real annual difference is closer to $300 than $3000. A few trips to the pump more than drains that away. The annual return on real estate in the near term future will likely not be as great as some expect, and may not be disastrous, lets say 2-3% per year.
That's maybe a few thousand dollars, which compared to the price of gas (which will likely as not rise more than that) is still not exciting. Better to move to a rental and take some time to watch what happens.

Mexico City Day Two

Today I set my alarm early since no one had contacted me yet. I slept in, woke up to a call from a customer in Seattle, and then got ready. About 920Am I emailed the office since I don't want to pay for the phone calls and international calls are blocked from my cell phone. I got a call not 5 minutes later from the rep agancy here. The woman who called me spoke no English, and the man who she handed the phone to was not involved, so he asked me what I wanted... after another hour or so someone (Arturo) came to pick me up.

We drove through some pretty tony neighbourhoods in the hills, and sputtered along the Reforma (What lanes, oh, the white lines?) before arriving at the customer site. Every building in Mexico seems to have security guards, and patrols, and staff. Costco has a pay to park lot. Oh, we went to lunch at Costco. I had the chicken bake, Arturo had the chicken caesar.

I arrived, nothing worked, I got it 90% functional in an hour, and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to fix the rest. Scheduled some training for tomorrow.

On the drive home, it started to rain. They get serious lightening here. It was impressive. Traffic is amazing. I was giddy with terror! We stopped on Prado Norte for tortas. The sandwhiches aren't any cheaper than they are in the states, but the avocado is free. I washed my hands in a basin in the back (it was the dish sink I think). Single spigot, rinse, get some Salvo (salvo me salva!) on your hands and lather up. It was reminiscent of the granular soap from public schools. No paper towels, no tables, no counters. I had an agua fresca that was made from cranberry juice (maybe?) and was between a sloppy smooth shake and a sherbet. Served in a styrofoam cup, with a styrofoam lid, served out of a ladle!

Mexico City

Canada is an independent nation, but it isn't foreign, so long as you can overlook poutine.

Mexico City is a whole other place. Here's why:

NANP? We don't need no stinking NANP! What this means for the tourist is that if your phone works, you may need to figure out how many of those area codes area needed. Plus, my North American phone tries to mangle the numbers into what it assumes are the right groupings. I was unable to call a land line, got a try again message when I tried a cell phone-- which had an extra number. I am unable to make stateside calls.

Clean air? We don't need no stink free clean air! The whole place has a light odour of Hydrogen Sulfide (bad eggs/sewer gas). I adjusted a little too quickly to it.

Ingles? No puedo hablar esta maldita lengua! Funny, their English is almost worst than my Spanish. The 5 star hotel in the ritzy neighbourhood is plenty nice, but if I leave the front door its a whole other world.

Also, the page on blogger where this was created started popping up in spanish once I went to accederla. Lets Publicar y ver el blog.